Unbelievable

I wouldn’t believe the last twenty four hours were actually true unless I had lived them. At 6pm yesterday I was sitting in our hotel in Reims looking for a flight to Barcelona. Frank was at the train station booking a train back to Paris.

For some unknown reason I started googling cruises from Barcelona. I noticed a fire sale on a cruise for eleven days from Barcelona to Casablanca to Canary Islands to Funchal (wherever that is) to Malaga to Civitavecchia (Rome) to Genoa and back to Barcelona. I thought how perfect it would be to have accommodation, travel and food all organised for eleven days. We could mentally relax a bit. I was so excited by the prospect that I texted Frank to book the first train out of Reims straight to Charles De Guille airport. We booked a train out of Reims at 7:38m arriving at Champagne–Ardenne at 7:48am with a connecting train at 8am to CDG airport. After this we had a flight to Barcelona at 11:30 landing in Barcelona at about 1pm. The ship, MSC Fantasia, was due to depart Port at 6pm. Sounds okay right? The only issue is we didn’t have tickets for the ship and as anyone who has cruised will know this is something you need to organise well in advance. We tried to book tickets for the Cruise on line but it was locked out as it was too close to the ship departure time. We also called a travel agent in the UK, advertising the cruise, but were told it was too close to departure time. As it was Sunday no other travel agents were open. On Sunday night I couldn’t sleep. I had a feeling about the cruise and that we would be on it the following night. On Monday morning we hurriedly got dressed and headed to the train station. Then there was a problem, the train from Reims to Champagne-Ardenne was delayed, I was panicking. Missing our connecting train would mean missing our flight and the boat so to speak. At 7:50am we boarded the train for the ten minute journey to Champagne-Ardenne. We knew our connecting train was leaving at 8am. On speaking to fellow passengers we found that two other people, a man and a lady not travelling together, were also due to catch the connecting train. The man called ahead and heard that the train would not wait but it was to depart from platform 4. We arrived at Champagne-Ardenne and could see our train on another platform. It seemed so close and yet so far away. The man jumped onto the tracks and ran across to catch the train. With two kids and four cases we didn’t have that option. Frank and I grabbed a case in each hand and instructed the kids to run and keep up. We ran up two flights of stairs. I was out of breath but could hear the whistle sounding for our train to leave. We kept running, I asked Frank to go ahead and hold the door. We squeezed in just as the doors were closing. Despite having to walk kilometres across the airport we made our flight with time to spare.

It was a smooth flight on Easy Jet which doesn’t have a seating allocation. It was seating on a first come first serve basis but because of the kids we were given ‘speedy boarding’ and got great seats. The lady behind us nearly got arrested for refusing to stop using her mobile phone during take off. She then kept kicking the back of my seat. An interesting touch on the flight was that they sold scratchies. For 1.50 Euro you had to chance to win 10000 pounds. I wondered what the scratch options would be ‘sudden turbulence’, ‘rough landing’ but we bought a couple anyway. On approaching the airport we flew over the MSC Fantastia. Frank joked to Rocco that we just needed some parachutes to get on board as we had no tickets.

When we landed in Barcelona we caught a bus into the main part of town. Frank and I agreed that we would catch a taxi from there to the ship. We knew the chances of getting on board were near on impossible but at least we would get to see the port. On arriving at the Ship there were was a large crowd of people leaving the previous cruise and those with tickets for the new cruise. We walked into the terminal and I asked at the information desk if we could buy tickets for the cruise. Naturally the guy looked at me as though I was from Mars. He said, ‘we are not a ticket office, takes time - the manifest for visas. Is not possible’. We walked outside and saw some men in tuxedos representing ‘the Yatch Club’. This is an upmarket service which, for a premium, includes a personal butler and all drinks on board the ship. I approached the man in charge and told him our predicament, ‘We are packed all ready to go if you have a spare cabin on board.’ Frank said, ‘If you have a spare cabin, we have spare money.’ He was bewildered, a highly unusual request. He asked if we could wait. I said, 'We have no plans.' He said he'd see what he could do. By now it was close to 3pm. We waited about fifteen minutes and then he came back and asked us our nationality. I handed him our passports. I heard him say ‘Australie, two bambinos’ into his mobile phone.

Rocco told me I should pray and kiss his necklace, just like he was, if I wanted to get on the ship. So I kissed his necklace and prayed. Frank and I looked at each other and agreed that it would be incredible if we could pull this rabbit out the hat. We waited another twenty minutes and I said, ‘let’s ask what’s taking so long’. Frank asked and the guy said, ‘I have called Naples and I am just waiting for them to ring back’. Shortly after he told us get onto the ship and then we will discuss the price. I said, ‘We don’t want to jump overboard so let’s discuss it now’. We were given a price for the Yatch Club including a butler. ‘Oh we travel a long time.’ Was this a good time to bring up the internet special? Of course! Frank produced the lap top and we mentioned the website and special. Back onto the phone to Naples.

‘We can’t give you that rate but we can give you a balcony suite at a special price’. It was a special price and so we agreed. I couldn’t resist adding, ‘Does that include champagne?’ He laughed, ‘It would be our pleasure to include some champagne.’ We were given a royal escort by a lady in a tuxedo directly on board the ship. As we walked through the terminal past lines of people waiting to board I heard comments like, ‘They don’t even have to wait.’ I had to laugh, it had been an intersting day.

On board we greeted by the cruise manager, Giovanni, a charming gentleman who had heard our travel story. He said, 'you can have champagne everyday'. I was trying to cut down but hey... We were escorted to a balcony suite and had a bottle of champagne waiting for us. It was 3:30pm and yes we had pulled a rabbit out of the hat.

It is now our first full day on board this amazing vessel which accommodates 3800 passengers. We still can’t believe we’re on the ship and neither can the staff we speak to. Many have told us they don’t know of this ever happening before, ‘those crazy Australians that just turn up and get on the ship.’